The Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network strongly condemns the unprovoked and illegal attack on Iran by Israel, fully co-planned, backed and participated in by the U.S. and NATO. These attacks are a clear violation of international law and the United Nations Charter and represent a dangerous escalation of the imperialists’ war drive in West Asia and North Africa.

Israel launched an unprovoked attack on Iran while continuing its genocide in Gaza. Over the past 20 months, Palestinians in Gaza have endured a devastating siege, mass starvation, bombing campaigns, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. A recent report from the Harvard Dataverse found that at least 377,000 people in Gaza have “disappeared” during this genocide, about half of them children. This grim number points to a far higher death toll than what has been reported and reveals the horrifying scale of disappearances and mass detention of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza continues to face growing resistance and global outrage. More isolated on the world stage than ever, Israel has expanded its war and aggression against Yemen, Lebanon and Iran, countries that support Palestine’s struggle for self-determination and liberation.

On Friday, June 13, 2025, Israel launched a criminal assault on Iran, targeting hospitals, infrastructure, and nuclear sites, killing civilians, and violating Iran’s sovereignty, international law, and the United Nations Charter. On June 22, 2025, the United States followed suit and directly and illegally bombed three Iranian nuclear sites. These bombings threatened millions of lives with the risk of nuclear contamination and opened a dangerous new phase in the new era of war and occupation in West Asia.

The U.S. aggression against Iran is not a new phenomenon. For decades, the United States has imposed sanctions, issued threats, carried out assassinations, and backed Israeli military covert operations and cyberattacks against Iran. The recent attacks are a continuation of 45 years of direct and indirect war on Iran, terrorism, assassinations, sanctions and sabotage. The recent Israeli and U.S. attack on Iran is not about nuclear weapons but about regime change in Iran. Iran is under attack because it refuses to bow to imperialists’ power and their push to regain complete hegemony in the region.

Iran is not the source of instability as the U.S. and Israel claim. The same forces behind the genocide in Gaza have been driving instability and chaos in the region for more than one hundred years. It is U.S. imperialism and NATO that have fueled war, death, and destruction for millions of people across West Asia and North Africa. In fact, Iran was in the middle of nuclear negotiations with the U.S. when Israel launched its attacks. Iran has repeatedly stated that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Iran is also a member of both the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), while Israel is not. Israel stockpiles undeclared nuclear weapons and refuses inspections, yet it is Iran that is bombed under the false claim of developing atomic weapons.

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran killed over 700 people, with more than five thousand injured, including many women and children. Iran had no choice but to exercise its legal right to self-defence. These twelve days of war imposed on Iran resulted in its legitimate right to defend itself with strikes on Zionist Israel and an American base, as well as on NATO ally Qatar, fortunately followed by a ceasefire.

The ceasefire now in place does not equal peace. It is a temporary cessation of hostility; in fact, Iran and the Zionist Israeli regime are at war. We know the genocidal Israeli regime never commits to a ceasefire, as we saw Israel has broken ceasefire agreements thousands of times in Gaza and Lebanon. Israel has shown the world that it doesn’t care about upholding international law or the United Nations Charter since 1948. We must remain vigilant. Israel and Iran remain in an official state of war, and new attacks remain a real threat.

Canada’s role must also be condemned. The Canadian government publicly supported the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, aligning itself with this illegal and dangerous escalation. From day one of the start of Israeli bombing on Iran, Prime Minister Mark Carney affirmed “Israel’s right to defend itself and to ensure its security”. This same talk that we heard month after month, as the Zionist regime continues its genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Carney was also quick to justify the dangerous bombing by the U.S. of Iranian nuclear sites. Carney did not condemn or criticize Israel’s unprovoked and illegal June 13 attack on Iran, but he did condemn Iran’s lawful retaliation (under UN Charter Art. 51). After being asked by a reporter, he refused to say whether U.S. strikes on Iran violate international law.

Canada’s support for Israel and the U.S. is not only in words and statements. Despite pledging to freeze new permits in January 2024, Canada approved over $28.5 million in military exports to Israel under existing licenses. Prime Minister Carney has announced that Canada would spend an additional $9.3 billion on defence spending for 2025–26. Carney has also committed Canada to the new NATO pledge to spend 5% of the country’s GDP on defence by 2035. This will mean billions more spent on militarization, the most significant increase since World War II. Mark Carney’s government is walking in lockstep with the U.S. imperialist war machine.

Now more than ever, we must expand our opposition to genocide, war, and occupation. We must defend Gaza and stand with Iran and all nations under attack by the U.S./Israel/NATO war machine. Across the world, people are rising to demand justice and an end to this military war drive and crimes against humanity. The Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network endorses the international “Weekend of Resistance Against War On Palestine, Iran And West Asia” and calls on peace-loving people and organizations across Canada to build and join actions demanding:

U.S.-Israel Hands Off Iran!
End the genocide now!
Stop Bombing Gaza!
Hands Off the West Bank!
End the Siege on Gaza Now!
Arms Embargo Now – Canada/U.S. Stop Arming Israel!